A True Story: Transforming Disengagement Into Employee Engagement

Speech is civilization itself. The word, even the most contradictory word, preserves contact — it is silence which isolates. ~ Thomas Mann

Many organizations fear the voices they may hear in social media and what employees may say publicly about their own organization. We are making a big mistake if we muffle and stifle the voices of the people we work with.

Disengaged energy. I believe that disengaged employees who take the energy to express, connect, and voice their disengagement for their company are demonstrating a high level of energy that can potentially be used for engagement.

Here is the story. A participant in a recent course told me that 5 young employees in her organization started a negative Facebook group about their company. The company became aware of it and thought about what action to take. Two of the employees received suspensions for a few days based on what they said and their use of company logos etc.

Now here is where it gets interesting. The company and the union had discussions with the 2 two main employees responsible for the site. With greater understanding of what they were engaged in both employees expressed sincere apologies and their own naivety about what they had engaged in.

From enraged to engaged. One of those employees is now a supervisor and has transformed his energy to working with, not against, the organization.

It gets even better. This formerly disgruntled employee is now in the training department and is the first person that new employees meet and receive training from when they join the company. He is the first voice of the organization!

The major points:

We need to encourage the different voices from within the organization.

We need to listen and educate.

We need to see that voiced disengagement has the potential for transformation.

Social media does need respect and a code of conduct within organizations.

Are you listening? What are you waiting for? Are you letting employees give voice to their experiences, their engagement, and even their disengagement?

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David Zinger

Comments

Another excellent post from the Zingmeister! It reminds me of a question I am often asked about cynics within organisations, and how to turn them into ambassadors. We often see people who have been totally cynical turn into evangelists, just by listening to them tell their own story. Cynics aren’t cynics because they naturally disgruntled human beings…it is usually because they are frustrated at a lack of empowerment, or they can’t see the link between what they are doing and what’s being asked of them, or their opinions and experienced aren’t valued. Sit and listen to them, and once they feel valued it’s amazing what the turnaround can be.
Alison

At the end of this article, I noted the section regarding training. This is an area where we tend to fail and an extremely important aspect to starting an employee off as an engaged member of our organization. So sad, that we bypass or disregard the importance of new employee training. As a whole, we all developed our training model after old Mrs. Snodgrass in the third grade. She was the teacher, you were the pupil, and you better sit there and be quiet as she drones on about the ABCs. Adult learners are quite different. Unlike third-graders, most adults see themselves as responsible for their own decisions and lives. Adult need to know why they need to learn something. In addition, each class may have a wide variety of ages in attendance. As much as it hurts me, I will be the first to confess that the older people need more time to learn than the younger set. People in their fifties, sixties, and seventies can learn new techniques and acquire new knowledge just as well as younger people. However, the older ones will need a little more time. When you mix your training class with both young and old, you will have some who are bored and some who are struggling. Be aware of this and come up with creative solutions. Michael L. Gooch, SPHR http://www.michaellgooch.com